City/Town Directories and Voting Lists The large collection dates from the first Boston directory of 1789 and covers most Massachusetts communities. The last Boston directory was published in 1981. Around this time directories for other Massachusetts cities and towns cease to be published, supplanted by the telephone book as a listing for a town's residents, businesses, organizations, and services. The collection is weak in recent publications. For more current street and voter lists, contact either the Boston Public Library (617 536-5400) or the town hall or public library of the community that is being researched. Directories contain a list of persons, organized by last name, residing in a town or city. However, some directories (including "Blue Books") do contain house guides, which contain street listings. These guides, the majority of which are found in twentieth-century directories, are useful when looking for the residents of a particular address. <A HREF="http://www.state.ma.us/lib/sc/houseguide.htm">A List of City Directories Containing A House Guide (49KB)</A> is in Special Collections and is now available online. Voting and street lists are also organized by street name. The Department's directory holdings are as follows: <A HREF="http://www.state.ma.us/lib/sc/Dir.htm">Directories A-D (69KB)</A>; <A HREF="http://www.state.ma.us/lib/sc/Dir2.htm"> Directories E-I (44KB)</A>; <A HREF="http://www.state.ma.us/lib/sc/Dir3.htm">Directories J-NEW M (49KB)</A>; <A HREF="http://www.state.ma.us/lib/sc/Dir4.htm">Directories NEW S-SHEF (49KB)</A>; <A HREF="http://www.state.ma.us/lib/sc/Dir5.htm">Directories SHEL-WA (41KB)</A>; <A HREF="http://www.state.ma.us/lib/sc/Dir6.htm">Directories WE-Y (41KB)</A>. This has the information re special collections at the State Library of Massachusetts......it has voting lists from 1789 to 1981 arranged alphabetically. http://www.state.ma.us/lib/sc/sc.htm ....it is worth checking out.... Janice Boston